post #21 - Watch out for scammers
I just finished scheduling my bill payments for December and honestly, it's a great feeling. I can enjoy my cat sitting jobs, look for additional freelance work, and of course, enjoy the holidays without having to stop to pay bills. It's definitely one of the benefits of technology.
Speaking of looking for work and technology, there's been a lot of people posting about scammers targeting job seekers lately. I love that people want to warn others, but something keeps bugging me in these posts and I wanted to add my two cents.
Almost every post that I've seen about scammers has included something like "the first red flag", and then goes on to detail other red flags that were in the message. If you see a red flag, STOP. Do not think "oh, maybe that's no so bad" and continue reading (or emailing the scammer). Just stop. One red flag is one too many. I get that candidates are getting desperate but please, use a little common sense when unsolicited "recruiters" reach out to you.
Some of the most common red flags are:
° you are tagged with many others in a comment referring you to someone whose email address ends in Gmail (or Outlook, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, etc.)
° you are asked to submit your resume to see if it's ATS compliant
° you are asked to connect through WhatsApp
There are others but those are the ones I've seen the most.
No legitimate recruiter is going to be using an email address that ends in Gmail (or Outlook, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, etc.).
No legitimate recruiter is in the business to rewrite your resume or refer you to such a service. They *may* ask you to tweak your resume to fit a client's needs/preferences but they will not ask you to rewrite it.
No legitimate recruiter will tell you that you have to connect through WhatsApp to continue conversing with them.
I've stopped quite a few scammers by simply asking for a job description and the salary, if they can't/won't provide those, I'm done. If they do send the job description, you still need to do your due diligence but this one request has stopped a lot of scammers from continuing the conversation (at least that's been my experience).
Remember to exercise a little common sense when someone you don't know reaches out to you. If you see ANYTHING that is off, even a little, delete the message. Don't let your desperation get the better of you. You may end up losing more than just a little time.
Hang in there, things will eventually turn around.
Have a great weekend!
(picture is of the view I had when I was paying bills and it's one of my favorites - I have no idea why the blog flipped it 🫤)
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